Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who was banned for life from the NBA over racist comments, has apologized and asked for forgiveness on Sunday in his first public statement since the controversy began.

In an interview to be broadcast on Monday, Sterling told CNN he made a terrible mistake but was not a racist.

"I love my league, I love my partners. Am I entitled to one mistake? It's a terrible mistake, and I'll never do it again," Sterling said in the interview, according to CNN. "I'm here to apologize."

His comments came about two weeks after National Basketball Association Commissioner Adam Silver fined the billionaire businessman $2.5 million and banned him after a tape surfaced of Sterling telling a female friend not to associate with black people.

He said of his recorded discussion with his girlfriend, V. Stiviano, "When I listen to that tape, I don't even know how I can say words like that. ... I don't know why the girl had me say those things. ...

"Yes, I was baited. I mean, that's not the way I talk. I don't talk about people for one thing, ever. I talk about ideas and other things. I don't talk about people."

Stiviano had a low national profile before the recording of Sterling's comments was released. She had been a fixture at Clippers games and was often seen with Sterling at social events.

“An 80-year-old man is kind of foolish, and I'm kind of foolish," Sterling said of the relationship. "I thought she liked me and really cared for me. I guess being 51 years older than her, I was deluding myself. I just wish I could ask her why, and if she was just setting me up.”

Sterling was asked why it had taken so long for him to address the issue in public.

"The reason it's hard for me, very hard for me, is that I'm wrong. I caused the problem. I don't know how to correct it," Sterling told CNN.

Sterling was asked if he had apologized to Magic Johnson, whose photo on Instagram with Stiviano set off the taped tirade that was later released to the media.

“If I said anything wrong I'm sorry. He's a good person,” Sterling answered. “I mean, what am I going to say? Has he done everything he can do to help minorities? I don't think so. But I'll say it, he's great. but I don't think he's a good example for the children of Los Angeles.”

Sterling's wife, Shelly Sterling, who has co-owned the team with her husband since 1981, said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday that she would fight any attempt by the league to force her to sell.

"I was shocked by what he (Donald Sterling) said. And, well, I guess whatever their decision is, we have to live with it," Shelly Sterling told ABC News. "But I don't know why I should be punished for what his actions were."

The Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday that Shelly Sterling had hired a law firm to help her as the NBA moves to terminate her husband's ownership of the team.

Shelly Sterling, who shares ownership of the Clippers through a family trust, told ABC she intends to divorce her estranged husband.

"For the last 20 years, I've been seeing attorneys for a divorce," she told ABC News. "Eventually, I'm going to."

In response to her comments, the NBA said on Sunday that, under the league's constitution, the interests of all other owners of a team come to an end when the controlling owner's stake is terminated.

"It doesn't matter whether the owners are related as is the case here. These are the rules to which all NBA owners agreed to as a condition of owning their team," the NBA said in a statement.

On Friday, the NBA installed Richard Parsons, a former Time Warner chief executive and chairman, as interim chief executive of the Clippers. Parsons was appointed three days after Sterling's longtime top lieutenant, Andy Roeser, was placed on indefinite leave as team president.

In an audio tape released by entertainment news blog Radar Online on Friday, Donald Sterling can be heard dismissing the racist remarks that set off the controversy as jealousy over other men spending time with a woman he was trying to woo.

Los Angeles Clippers co-owner Shelly Sterling said Wednesday that she believes she is legally entitled to maintain ownership of the NBA team and will attempt to do so, even as the pro basketball league pushes to remove her husband from the team he has owned for 33 years.